Wormsley Library

[Esther Inglis Proverbs MS]

Autograph calligraphic MS, vi + 56 pages + 1 leaf (180 x 134 mm.). A presentation MS to Catherine de Bourbon (1558-1604), sister of Henri IV, with a Dedication to her, in numerous styles of script, with ink and colour decoration and a self-portrait. 3 June 1601.

*InE 26: Esther Inglis, [Proverbs] Les Proverbes de Salomon. Lislebourg, Esther Anglois, 1601

Once owned by Chevalier Thomas and his wife. Lawrence Feinberg's sale catalogue 1 [1977], item 1.

Scott-Elliot & Yeo, No. 18 (pp. 47-8), as in a ‘Private collection, England’. Facsimiles of pp. 42-3 and the portrait page in The Wormsley Library (Maggs Bros, London, & Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1999), No. 39 (pp. 102-3).

A French translation of the Book of Proverbs in the Bible, with other verses in French and Latin including some to to Esther Inglis by Melville and Johnston.

[Esther Inglis Psalms MS I]

Autograph calligraphic MS. Presumably prepared as a New Year's Gift, and with a self-portrait. 1 January 1611/12.

*InE 37: Esther Inglis, [Psalms] The Psalms of David, written by me, Esther Inglis at Willingale Spain, the 1st of January 1612

Later owned by the Rev. Richard Farmer (1735-97), literary scholar (his sale May-June 1798, lot 8098); by James Bindley, FSA (1737-1818), book collector (his sale, Part II, January 1819, lot 2415), to the bookseller Thomas Rodd (1796-1849).

Scott-Elliot & Yeo, No. 38 (p. 69), as ‘Untraced’.

The Psalms in English.

[Esther Inglis Psalms MS II]

Autograph calligraphic MS, in roman and italic scripts, with decoration and a self-portrait, ix leaves + 285 pages (84 x 62 mm.), in contemporary white velvet embroidered, dated 5 May 1624. 1624.

*InE 39: Esther Inglis, [Psalms] The Booke of the Psalmes of Davide in prose written be Esther Inglis in the fiftie thre yeer of hir age at Edenbrugh the V. of May. [1]624

Sold by Quaritch, in 1948, to Major John Roland Abbey (1894-1969), collector. Sotheby's, 20 June 1978 (Abbey sale), lot 3000, with facsimile examples in the sale catalogue.

Scott-Elliot & Yeo, No. 55 (pp. 83-4).

The Psalms in English, with Latin verses to Esther Inglis by Melville, Rollock, and Johnston.

[Jonson's Spenser]

A printed exemplum containing copious annotations by Ben Jonson. 1617.

SpE 95: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen [&c.] (London, 1617)

Once owned by the Dering family, baronets, of Surrenden, Kent. Puttick & Simpson's, 13 July 1865 (Dering sale, 3rd day), lot 754. Sold by Quaritch in 1980.

Extensively discussed and illustrated in James A. Riddell and Stanley Stewart, Jonson's Spenser: Evidence and Historical criticism (Pittsburgh, 1995); and see also their ‘Jonson Reads “The Ruines of Time”’, SP, 87 (1990) 427-55. The Wormesley Library (Maggs Bros & Pierpont Morgan Library, 1999), No. 42.